“Power struggle at the ECB,“ headlines Handelsblatt. According to unofficial sources, Paris is seconding IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn to succeed ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet whose term in office comes to an end in November 2011. The rumours will add weight to the theory that Bundesbank chief Axel Weber, the long-standing favourite to take over at the ECB, may now be sidelined in the wake of his recent criticism of the ECB’s decision to buy bonds of heavily indebted euro zone nations. “The Strauss-Kahn name gives us an idea of the profile of the next ECB president,” remarks the business daily, which expects that the successful candidate will be “a pragmatist and not a dogmatist: that is to say a crisis manager guided by a keen sense of political realities rather than a central banker who is overly focused on the danger of inflation." But in view of the fact that another French ECB resident remains unlikely, the next favourite could be Mario Draghi, the current governor of the Banca d’Italia.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku.